Monthly Archives: September 2015

I was reading a novel the other day in which mention was made of ‘a blue manila folder’. This brought me up short, because surely manila is (a) an envelope and (b) the substance for which the adjective ‘buff-coloured’ was … Continue reading →

Decisions, decisions: the autumn equinox is producing such wonderful sights that I’m spoiled for choice for September’s plant of the month. Sedums, rudbeckias, penstemons, cyclamen, colchicums, and of course Michaelmas daisies – which I’m alarmed to see are undergoing a … Continue reading →

I’m not yet done with Venice (how could one ever be?), and this month’s highlighted object can currently be seen there, in the wonderful Ca’ Rezzonico (left), which, after a chequered history, is now the museum of eighteenth-century Venice. The … Continue reading →

As our holiday draws to an end, and we contemplate our return – to autumn, to cleansing of the liver, to new challenges, and to a totally pissed-off Max the Cat, who started getting antsy when we brought out the … Continue reading →

I would assert that there is unlikely to be any greater, more playful or more evocative epitaph in any language than the one (dubiously) ascribed to Virgil: Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope; cecini pascua, rura, duces, with … Continue reading →

Unlike Cole Porter’s troupe of strolling players, we did not open in Venice: we go there last, having spent two very hot days in Ferrara, and having arrived in Mantua, to the twin delights of wifi and a terrific thunderstorm … Continue reading →